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Software Piracy At the Workplace?
An anonymous reader writes "What does one do when a good portion of the application software at your workplace is pirated? Bringing this up did not endear me at all to the president of the company. I was given a flat 'We don't pirate software,' and 'We must have paid for it at some point.' Given that I was only able to find one burnt copy of Office Pro with a Google-able CD-Key, and that version of Office is on at least 20 computers, I'm not convinced. Some of the legit software in the company has been installed on more than one computer, such as Adobe Acrobat. Nevertheless I have been called on to install dubious software on multiple occasions. As for shareware, what strategies do you use to convince management to allow the purchase of commonly used utilities? If an installation of WinZip reports thousands of uses, I think the software developer deserves a bit o' coin for it. When I told management that WinZip has a timeout counter that counts off one second per file previously opened, they tried to implement a policy of wait for it, do something else, and come back later, rather than spend the money. Also, some software is free for home and educational use only, like AVG Free. What do you when management ignores this?"
Do what you're told. Look for another job.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
I can see two honorable paths here:
You can find them FOSS substitutes for their existing software.
You can find another job.
If you want to be optimistic you can stand your ground with the managers and state: "I will not install software unless I'm certain we have a proper license for it." And see if they show you the door, or attempt to find some kind of compromise. People that take the time to look seriously at Open Office often like what they find. So there is a slim hope, but odds are, these are not the class of people you want to make a career with, and you'll be happier working somewhere that ethical compromises are not a daily expectation.
For most purposes, reasonably people look at the available data first and then infer a conclusion. When it comes to "moral" matters, though, you get a certain subset of people who work in the opposite direction.
Instead of saying "Well, I do seem to be surrounded by CD-R copies of commercial software activated with leaked VLKs, I must be a dirty pirate." they say "I'm obviously a good person, and good people don't do bad things, therefore the things that I have done could not possibly be bad."
This would be merely harmless idiocy, were it not for the fact that most of those people are completely wrong.
For utilities like winzip, replace them with open source stuff like 7zip. Explain that it's ok to be used for commercial use, and it avoids annoying licensing costs. As for the other stuff, shoot an email to your management about it and print it out. If they refuse to listen, at least you have a hard copy on record showing that you tried to warn them. Then, if anything ever happens legally you've tried to notify them and you can't get canned. If they do, they'll have a hefty wrongful termination lawsuit on their hands. If it really bothers you, find a new job and call the BSA. Tattletale. :-P
If they're dishonest in one area, well, they're dishonest, period. You'll get dicked over if you stay there. Frankly, I have no qualms about calling the BSA about places like this....
Do you have ESP?
Document everything and then turn them in. Of course the previous look for another job applies as well.
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
Instead of accsing the company of piracy (even if they're guilty), use another approach.
Say, I'm concerned that renewing future licenses will be very expensive. Say, the 1,000 copies of Winzip at $30 each is $30,000. 7-zip is a free alternative that actually works better, and will save the company $30,000 the new time those licenses need to be renewed. Alnd OpenOffice saves $400 per license over MS Office. OpenOffice comes with free PDF export functionality, which saves the $500 Acrobat license.
You may get approval to install free, legal alternatives and get rid of the pirated software. Even better, instead of being seen as the problem (the person who has a moral objection to their piracy), you'll be seen as a solution.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The ethical thing to do at this stage in the game is to drop a dime on'em. The sensible thing to do is to ensure that you still have an income afterwards. Count on the boss finding out and retaliating; whether that is illegal or not, factor that into your plans.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
In office environments like this, management's stand is very unlikely to change. Trying to change their minds will be an exercise in futility, so you need to just focus your decision making on whether or not you are willing to stick around and be a part of it, or would rather look for another job.
Shawn Asmussen
Just report it. The burned hand teaches best. Think how pissed your president would be if he found out the software his company built was being pirated. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I am a sysadm/web developer for a smallish manufacturing business. When I got here, there licensing was a complete and utter mess. They had about half the number of Office licenses as needed (And half of those were Home/Student Edition), they had a centralized AV solution that they were still getting updates for but hadn't paid for in three years, and just overall were NOT compliant.
I brought it to the company president's attention. Buying 40 Office licenses at a time (Probably around $10000 for Small Business) as well as 70-80 AV subscriptions (Maybe another $2000), and various other server and client software (Around $12,000 more) was not something they wanted to do. They did agree to take it slow and get legit over a period of time. During that period, I did install Office on more machines but they bought the licenses over a period of 18 months. In the end, I am happy to say we are nearly 100% compliant.
So I guess instead of going to him with a HUGE bill, maybe write up a plan to go legit over the next year or two. They may balk at a one time large sum of money but be willing to pay $1000 here, $2000 there or something. Worked for me. If the company is too cheap to even do that, you probably aren't going to you as an employee and are probably better off starting to look around....
Don't think that the company president who "didn't know he was using pirated software" won't serve you up as the sacrificial lamb to the Powers That Be in a heartbeat when some disgruntled ex-employee rats to the BSA. At that point, you'll be out of a job the hard way, with the kind of black stain on a record that no young IT guy wants to have.
interface is shit
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
We've been over this ground many times.
Document (as in "make sure the decision maker is aware of it") the need for an audit of software licenses. If they refuse to permit that, cover your ass as best you can and start looking for another job.
If they permit the audit, do it. If you come up short in the licenses-to-installed copies ratio, document that. If they refuse to mitigate (buy licenses or delete installations) cover your ass as best you can and look for another job.
It is your job to make the decision makers aware of the licensing terms, show them how the organization is or is not in compliance with those terms, and to educate them as to the consequences of failing to comply. If you are not allowed, at the very minimum, to do these things, rest assured that it will be you who is blamed when that willful negligence comes back to bite the organization. Cover your ass and get the documentation that shows you at least tried to get them to do the right thing.
Sorry, I don't understand you. You were trying to explain how endangering one's job to avoid engaging in unethical behavior is a cowardly thing to do?
Actually, Windows (since XP), Mac (since Tiger), and Ubuntu have .zip creation and extraction built in. WinZip is a dinosaur at this point.
There's a reason you posted this AC.
The BSA is almost as sociopathic as the Company President in the slashdot summary. If you go to them, expect to be blackballed just as surely as if the company got ratted out by someone else and you took the blame.
Would you work for a company that stole cars to maintain its motor pool - and you are the head of the Motor Pool Division? Time to find a new job. Times are tough, but jail time is worse.
It doesn't work quite like this. Microsoft has no more right to demand an audit of your systems than you do of their systems. They can only demand an audit if you've already agreed to do so in a licensing agreement you consented to. Generally, if you get a corporate site license or possibly other volume licensing from MS, you have agreed to on demand audits. If all the MS software you have came with the machines (like Windows and often Office) or you bought shrinkwrap versions, you don't have to agree to anything unless they have a court order.
-ec
Most small businesses have a hard time dealing with software licensing. Any money that they have to spend on software is less money for them to spend on other things like employee salaries, power bills to keep the lights on, toner for the printers, etc. It sounds to me like the OP has already shot himself in the foot by bringing it up to management.
If pirated software really bothers you then find another job (good luck with that in this market). However ratting your employer out to the BSA is a dickhead move. Whether you like it or not, they are currently paying your salary, and the salary of at least 20 other people. The odds of them getting audited for license compliance are just about zero, unless someone rats them out.
I'd take a long hard look at the situation. There isn't an easy answer. Either you rat out your employer and impose significant costs and lost productivity on a company in a struggling economy, or you live with being a thief for a while until you can find another job. If I were in that situation, I'd just suck it up and start looking for another job. I wouldn't cry myself to sleep if Microsoft loses out on the licensing revenue for 19 copies of Office. And I certainly wouldn't torpedo a company that is providing employment to my community just so that the BSA and Microsoft can earn a couple thousand dollars.
Software engineers, designers and the guys who advertise and sell the software want to be paid! Get your free info by generating it yourself.
Why bother
A trip down memory lane:
"Selling games is strictly self-serving also. Apparently, you think its fantastic for companies to be driven by greed, but the customers should be selfless? Same old shit as the banks - capitalise the profit, socialise the loss."
(damburger 24 Oct Score: 5)
"In what you gave as an analogy, the hypothetical person STOLE food from the restaurant- the restaurant is out the food and drink the person took by not paying. In the case of infringement, someone merely takes a copy thereof- and nobody's out anything save maybe a cash transaction that might or might not have happened. They're not out their original copy, so it's not theft."
(Svartalk 24 Oct Score: 5)
"If I copy something that an artist produced, it doesn't cost that artist either time or effort. The time and effort has already been spent, they have no way of getting it back.
The only possibility is that they might get payment in compensation for it. As long as anything I do does not affect their chance of getting this compensation, I see no possible way in which it can be immoral. Therefore, as long as I can be sure that I am not going to pay for a copy, I see no way that making my own copy is immoral."
(julesh 24 Oct Score: 4)
"Yeah just like getting bit by an ant 'hurts' me, but not really. It's just an ant. Nothing to have a hissy-fit over like IRAA and the BSA seem to be having.
BSA: 'Oh noes! We've been bit an ant. The end is nigh'
US: 'Stop being a wuss.'"
(commodore64_love 12 Oct Score: 4)
I think what's going on here is most people see business purchases of commercial software as a way to justify their own piracy, like this person:
"Through college I had the full version of Matlab/Simulink. I used toolboxes that the school didn't have when doing class projects. I learned everything I could about it and the toolboxes available.
Now, 6 years later, I was able to talk my boss into buying a few extra special toolboxes for the work we do. Something close to $30k a seat a year. Had I never 'pirated' all that software I would have never been able to sell my self to my company, nor sell my company on Matlab toolboxes."
(0100010001010011 12 Oct Score: 4)
Obviously said by someone who's never put a lot of work into a program, video, script, or anything else that requires creative work, then wondered why he wasn't making money on it.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
Interesting how the kiddies who've never had to work for a living thing they should get everything for free and don't have the backbone to produce anything worthwhile in exchange. They're the real users or AOLusers -- use and use and too impotent to produce on their own.
One of the best responses I've seen, although you probably won't get modded up. The only item I would add is that, in researching, the accounting department is a good place to go. They likely will not have license keys or other details, but are very likely to be able to tell you what was actually purchased, when, and from whom.
Not necessarily.
If it's within your purview, you can always try ordering licenses for the software in question, or submitting the purchase request through proper channels. When asked why, explain that you cannot find any licensing information, and you're looking to protect the company's interests.
That said, it's not your job to make policy, nor is it your responsibility to protect the financial interests of the publishers of the software in question.
So, keep a record of all of your meetings and document all conversations you had with any superiors regarding the situation. Obviously you don't want to include any especially damning details one way or the other -- your goal here is not retribution, it's job and career security. If you said nothing to management about a problem you knew about, then you're at fault. At the same time, you don't want to take the fall if/when someone reports your company. Keeping records will help to defend against either scenario, and improve your job prospects should you be "let go." It's evidence that you were trying to be a team player. CYA -- Cover Your Ass -- but don't rock the boat unless you're prepared for the consequences when everyone ends up in the water (including yourself).
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
If you build a house you get paid ONCE by the people who use it. Why should one effort at a film script (or software or music, etc.) grant you income for life? Maybe you should just get paid for it for 6 weeks to a year or however long it took to create. The idea that you should be paid for life (plus!) for a relatively short period of work is as ridiculous, if not more so, than people thinking they should get everything for free.
Ok this is a blatant troll but I'll bite anyway. Copyright is not theft. Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually. In the mean time we have laws and I still want to get paid. So whether you think so or not, copyrights and patents are there for a reason most of which involve me being able to eat and make the rent in order to continue to produce more software for you (collective not getting personal) to pirate.
Why bother
Begin looking for another job as soon as possible. Document your communications with your manager and attempts to get them to go legit. But leave as soon as possible.
The reason is simple: a company who believes it is okay to do what they're doing is not going to appreciate what YOU do. Your raises will never be good, the respect you garner from upper level management will be negligible, and you will always be treated as a second class citizen that is there only because the world requires it. The companies that do what you're describing are those who view technology as a "necessary evil" and "money sink" rather than the enabler it should be.
My reality check bounced.
Wow. What a great justification of illegal activity. Sorry, but djheru is right. Threatening to report illegal activity unless it is stopped is not blackmail. Threatening to report it unless I get some money is, but blackmail involves the blackmailer benefiting.
You've basically made the argument that no one ever has the right to threaten to go to the police if the criminal activity doesn't stop. That's beyond absurd.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
TL;DR you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants all his porn, games, movies and music for free cause has no money, and who'd never create anything worth a dime, so it's easy for you to whine and demand that everything is offered to you for free. I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own, I create value with my work, you wouldn't know what that means.
You just got troll'd!
The better (business) solution is to speak to management in terms they can understand - money.
I'm not saying that they need to feel threatened. Instead, point out that you are looking out for the interests of the company and want to ensure all bases are covered in the event of a short-notice software audit.
Then you outline a plan to audit the computers on your network and a plan for remediation (buying licenses, uninstalling software, and/or using some sort of network-wide metering package). Again, this should be done with the focus on how much this will cost the company versus not complying and getting caught with unlicensed software. Remember, management really only cares about budgets and how much of it needs to be expended. It might also help to explain that your own ass is on the line as the IT admin and that, by formally notifying management (you *are* documenting this formally, right?), they are just as culpable if/when a BSA audit occurs.
Part of a good admin's job is to audit the environment regularly for such things, anyway. Even if no action is taken on the findings, at least you know where you're starting from when action ultimately does need to be taken - for any sort of project, not just software license management.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually
You're not very good at extrapolation, are you? I'll admit I share a very tiny sliver of your hope, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. If any kind of sane copyright laws get enacted during my lifetime, I'll be very surprised.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
You make a pretty big leap, saying that disagreeing with the current application of intellectual property laws is the same as not believing in ownership of private property.
If you make something, you deserve to charge money for it. It's a big jump to then say that your great great great grandchildren should also make money from it. An even bigger jump to say that you can transfer your rights to someone else who can then make money from it in perpetuity and an even bigger jump to say that the people who buy your product don't really own it but are only leasing it for however long you say and not a moment longer.
The notion that intellectual property rights have certain limits, especially on the length of time you can claim those rights has been part of the laws of copyright and patent for a very long time. Given the ephemeral nature of ideas, this makes sense and has been a system that works. It's only since certain people, usually not the people who actually come up with the ideas, have started trying to assert longer and longer copyright periods, limiting the rights of the purchaser and coming up with perverted notions such as "licensing" products to consumers instead of "selling" those products, that there has been a serious pushback from consumers.
Making things and buying and selling those things is a two-way transaction that has been part of the social contract for a long time. Recently, one side of that transaction has decided to assert their financial power by making the rules of the transaction less equitable. That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.
You can say that the people breaking the rules are criminals or communists or even terrorists, but it would be easier to swallow these assertions if those on the supply side of the transaction had acted in good faith from the beginning. Unfortunately, "taking advantage of a powerful position" has become a sacred rite in the religion of free market economics. So, you end up with a surprising number of people who lose respect for the entire transaction. Maybe it's in the nature of human societies that every so often, when a transaction becomes unbalanced, that there is a widespread breakdown in following the rules which escalates until the system can be retooled. This seems to be what's happening in the realm of "intellectual property" (and, I can argue, in the entire system we know as "capitalism").
Behaviors that should have ended with feudalism now become "good business practice". No wonder so many people now believe that all of free market economics is a scam. One thing for sure, it's unlikely the system is going to be fixed by escalating the inequity of the transaction.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You are confusing the utilitarian aspect of someone (i.e., the government) protecting original ideas versus a morally justified right to having that idea protected.
I like how you implied I don't believe in private property because I believe scarcity is the main factor in property rights--I argued that anything scarce should be considered to be property. Anything that cannot be informationally copied. That's the difference between stealing and transcribing a book.
A more easy way to look at it is the level of arbitrariness involved in protection of this "property." Intellectual property rights are entirely arbitrary--the number of years you have a right to it, what IS and ISN'T considered fair use, those are all completely arbitrary and vary from nation to nation. You cannot merely know without being told beforehand what your intellectual property "rights" are. With scarce property, such as a chair or so on, your rights are pretty intuitive and more basic.
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
Again, that is a utilitarian argument and not a moral one. Or more accurately, that is an argument out of convenience and not out of whether it's right or wrong, and you have not established why it's wrong to copy software, merely that negative consequences will result (and I do not deny that).
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
I'm not saying people are owed or deserve that software for free, merely that copying software is not unethical because information is not [i]materially scarce[/i] (your usage of scarcity was an equivocation).
Saying that because thinking up or implementing a good idea grants you magical exclusive rights to it is ridiculous. It is like arguing that being the first to think of and implement a new scientific experimental paradigm grants you the exclusive right to that experimental paradigm. It's ridiculous.
I would say that you do deserve to get paid for your software, but given your hysterical yet amusing attitude I would be interested in knowing what program you made so I can torrent it :) Who knows... maybe I'll start really soon :)
(Please bear in mind that I didn't read the grandpappy post, just the bit you quoted and your response.)
The FOSS movement does not equate the two concepts "a particular configuration of 1s and 0s" and "creat[ing that sequence of 1s and 0s] as you need them" as you have. The problem is in the notion of doing something cool once and then making money off of it for the rest of your life when there is zero cost to mass produce (i.e., make digital copies). This is where the FOSS movement and I part ways a bit, because FOSS says that it's "unethical" to do this. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know if the cost of mass producing something is negligible, it's certainly impractical at the very least.
From the standpoint of a healthy capitalist society, I regard software more as a service (and don't confused SaaS here, I'm talking about box software like Windows) than a product. Capitalism is supposed to reward people for doing useful work. Patents and copyrights were originally conceived to do this, but over time they've become more and more about allowing one to rest on one's laurels and live a life of luxury for having done that one cool thing. I'm not exactly sure where this expectation of entitlement comes from...what other line of work doesn't require you to show up everyday to get a paycheck?
The "service" part of software comes in the form of extension and support. If I make something cool and release it for free, I may be paid to support it (ongoing labor), or even extend it (short-term labor at a particular customer's behest). Even in the case of being paid to do an extension I otherwise would not have done, I as the developer and strongly incented to release it for free to all because it presumably makes my original software more valuable and will drive further business.
Not coincidentally, this is actually how most commercial software companies actually work. I used to work for a well-known company that made marketing software, and they would routinely cut their prices 50%, even up to 90% to make a big sale. That sounds crazy until you understand the logic of it, which was to lock up the far more valuable support contract. In other words, what the market was saying is that the software itself wasn't valuable to customers—the support and ability to get feature requests answered, on the other hand, was. And so the pricing structure reflected that...give (or nearly give) the software away, and charge the real bucks for what the buyer is actually willing to pay for.
This happened on nearly every deal at that company, and it led me to wonder why they even bothered with charging at all...why not just give it away for free download on the website? Sure, a lot of small fish that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it would start using it without ever paying a dime into the system...but so what? We weren't going to make money off of them anyway, and by removing the barrier to entry we open the door to at least small or one-time support fees, get better feedback for laying out our roadmap, and potentially deprive a competitor of a sale, increasing our own marketshare.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
there are other considerations for society as explicitly discussed in the case law and other sources. however, i'm not necessarily even that put out by lifetime copyright, even though the original term of copyright was 10 years (and authors could lose copyright protection before their books were even well known due to the means of travel and communication of the time (horse and sailing ship)).
The problem with infinite copyright is that it stifles innovation the same as no copyright does. People are restrained by copyright from riffing off prior work. This can have negative societal consequences as political, social, and philosophical works frequently need to reference the current art. It's very onerous to tell people to buy 100 books because they're all still under copyright when excerpts would be more appropriate.
In addition, my biggest beef is the continual extension of copyright beyond the lifetime of the author solely to preserve Disney's profits because they're too lazy to invent new content or use trademark protection for mickey's damned ears.
Walt Disney's dead. Unless he's a follower of ancient Egyptian religion, he can't take it with him. His kids need to figure out how to make money themselves.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Technlogy is NOT "changing everything." Not many peope can write software, compelling stories, make good movies, video games, etc. As long as THAT doesn't change (and I don't see it changing anytime soon), copyright is just as valid today as it was 200 years ago.
Someone is providing a benefit, which, while not physical property, does mean they deserve to be paid.
Unless you don't want USEFUL software.
But that's just it: they don't have to buy it. And apparently there's a large segment of society that does not feel such an impulse to respect intellectual property laws. That's the point of my argument here.
The only time we've seen such a large portion of society openly willing to break a law has been prohibition against alcohol and marijuana. And one of those laws fell and the other is weakened every day.
That's why it's important to look at the reasons behind the public's unwillingness to respect intellectual property laws. There's more at work here than just the fact that suddenly otherwise law-abiding citizens have decided to become criminals. And those on the supply-side of content creation and patents (including me) better think about this situation very carefully because simply escalating penalties to scare people, setting up snitch 800 numbers and suing the pants off college kids and old ladies is not going to get the job done.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just know what you're getting into first and make sure you're ready for that. Getting calls from lawyers from your previous job on your current job usually doesn't earn you cool points with bosses no matter how right you were...
There's room for many models. It is the entertainment industry that is trying to force the economics of content into the same model as used for physical goods such as chairs.
Actually, they don't stop there, they want it both ways. Treated as information when it impacts their bottom line, treated like physical property when it's your bottom line. They sell downloads, however grudgingly, reaping huge savings in distribution costs from doing all the copying and delivery electronically. Then they try to insist their customers not do what they do by threatening legal action if people don't treat downloads as if they were physical objects, pushing idiotic DRM schemes, making insultingly ludicrous analogies, and when all else fails making disgusting appeals to our sympathies with the "starving artists" and "support capitalism" baloney. Those are like listening to Madoff give a speech on the virtues of honesty and financial probity.
I really do think copyright has to go. If we as a society want to encourage art beyond what can already be done with the incredible advances in technology, there are other ways than hogtying ourselves with these antiquated, nonsensical laws. What I mean is that before the 20th century, we lacked the means to record performers. Copyright was useless to them. They had to earn all their income from live performances. And those were to audiences of a few hundreds at most, with only clever amphitheater design to make them audible to their listeners. Performing to a different 1000 every weekday for 10 years would get a 19th century performer heard by fewer than 3 million people. Today, not only can we record performances, we can do all kinds of studio work to make recordings better than live could ever be. And we can broadcast performances all over the world, and amplify sound so tens of thousands of people can enjoy a single live concert. Yet the industry hinders the engineering wizards who made that and them possible, endlessly fighting every technological advance. Take away this weapon called "copyright" that they've been gouging and smashing lives with, and set down a few more ground rules to stop their abuse of musicians.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"